If the recently settled Quincy teachers contract taught us anything, it is the need to address and fix the spiraling costs of health care to communities, employees and taxpayers.

A proposal hammered out by city and town, state and union representatives to let municipalities join the state's Group Insurance Commission (GIC) is the best near-term solution to the problem.

We urge cities and towns to get together with their employee unions once the governor signs the bill, which is awaiting Senate approval, and find common ground to join a system that has seen half the rate increases many other health plans are experiencing.

A compromise measure that likely will not be embraced by every community's unions tethered to the familiar, the GIC can help those cities and towns hardest hit with overwhelming insurance payments.

Raw numbers don't tell it all. From fiscal 2001 through 2006, the cost of the state's health insurance rose an average of just under 8 percent a year, according to the Department of Revenue. Few, if any communities can make that claim:

Plymouth shot up a yearly average of 54.6 percent, mostly by the massive increase from $16.9 million to $40.6 million - a 141 percent hike - between 2005 and 2006;
Randolph rocketed up an average of 23 percent a year since 2001, fueled by hikes of 23 percent to 28 percent in 2002, 2003 and 2005;
Quincy's health care payments went from $20 million in 2001 to $30.7 million last year;
Norwell's health care costs over the five-year span doubled the increase of the state average;
Pembroke had to shell out nearly 47 percent more in 2005 than the year before and the town still had a 15.2 percent increase last year.

It's easy to see that with annual double digit increases, any possible growth in town budgets limited by Proposition 2∏ is being negated by the hikes and with overrides being turned down in many communities, cuts have to be made if no concessions come from workers.

A recent survey by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation with the Massachusetts Municipal Association found that, across the state, the health insurance line item ate up the entire existing tax growth under Prop 2 1/2.

In Braintree, for instance, where the average tax bill is $3,000, the Blue Cross PPO family plan costs about $22,000 yearly, with the town and employee splitting the premiums 50-50. That means it would take more than 3.5 taxpayers to cover the town's share of $11,000 for one worker's health care.

The best plan available under the GIC, the indemnity plan where a subscriber could go to any licensed provider at 100 percent coverage less co-pay, would cost a total of $1,639 per month for a family plan.

That would save Randolph and its employees, where the cost is split 50-50, roughly $300 per month each for a far better plan than their current PPO. The employees would save $3,500 per year and taxpayers would see $3,500 from each worker go back into the coffers.

In Quincy, Mayor William Phelan has offered unions the chance to join the GIC and he promised to keep the employee contribution at 10 percent, with the city picking up 90 percent.

This makes enormous sense for both sides. The highest cost HMO plan, which most city workers have, offered by GIC is $1,032 per month, meaning the employee contribution would be $103.20, about 31 percent savings over what they just agreed to.

The plan would require agreement from 70 percent of a community's union workers for a city or town to buy into the GIC. Some hardliners argue the measure was too much of a compromise and local officials should just be empowered to implement participation.

That can't and shouldn't happen. Collective bargaining is the right of public employees and health insurance costs are part of that hard-fought right. We think, though, when employees crunch the numbers, they'll see the benefits to joining the GIC.

We urge city and town workers and taxpayers to go to www.mass.gov/gic to see the plans available and the fiscal 2008 costs and compare it to what is being paid now.

Also, on our website, we have a chart that shows how much each city's and town's health care costs in our region have risen versus the state. Since 2001, across the state, employee health costs have risen 63 percent while municipal budgets have gone up just under 15 percent and local aid has actually decreased 1 percent in the same period.

Something needs to be done with this budget buster and we think when employees and their union officials - as well as taxpayers - see the numbers, the option of the state GIC will be enormously attractive.